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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228476">all the broken hearts in the world still beat</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlymorningechoes/pseuds/earlymorningechoes'>earlymorningechoes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dalish Elves, Emmalien is not actually from Clan Lavellan but she's a Dalish Inquisitor so it fits, F/M, Haven (Dragon Age), Loneliness, Sadness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:55:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>858</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228476</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlymorningechoes/pseuds/earlymorningechoes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Emmalien Briathos, uncomfortably called Herald of Andraste, escapes from Haven for a little time alone. She talks to herself to get through it, essentially writing a letter to her husband.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Lavellan (Dragon Age)/Original Male Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>all the broken hearts in the world still beat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Emmalien is from my OC Dalish clan Briathos, but she is the Inquisitor in her worldstate, hence the tagging as Lavellan!</p>
<p>The song Emmalien sings, "Passing By," is from <i>The World of Thedas, Volume 2</i>!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The camp at Haven is too loud. Too crowded. She’s used to being in a small area with lots of people, of course, but not like this. Not with hundreds of people running sword drills, dozens more running around quoting the Chant of Light, and everyone, everyone, everyone calling her the Herald of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Andraste. </span>
  </em>
  <span>She hasn’t heard a voice other than her own say Elgar’nan or Sylaise in weeks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She flees. Not far - just to the dock on the lake, unused since the water is still frozen - but far enough that the sounds in her ears are primarily the singing of birds and the grunting of druffalo, rather than a million human voices raised in a song she doesn’t want to join. Kicking her feet off the edge of the dock, she starts to speak - a letter, of sorts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hiya, Arathas, ma vhenan. It’s Emmalien. I will be calling myself Emmalien in this letter, yes, and since it is a spoken letter and not a written one you will never be able to tease me about accidentally telling the Seeker woman that dreadful nickname.” A small, subdued laugh huffs out of her, imaging the ribbing Arathas would give her if he knew. “<em>Mysie</em>. Why did I ever go by that anyways.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I miss you.” She doesn’t mean to stop there, but she has to try to contain the tears suddenly welling in her eyes. One drips off the end of her nose, and she presses the ends of her halla-wool cloak to her face to stem them. It smells of smoke and sweat now, after so long, but underneath there’s just a hint of halla and leather and sweet cedar wood. Home. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I miss you,” she says again, muffled by the cloak. “I miss Delathas and Felaren. I don’t think it’s hit me yet that they’re gone, lost here among humans, and when it does…” She has to take a deep breath. “We shouldn’t have come here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I miss our children. Nothing here is anything like home. It was interesting before the explosion, like an adventure. But now...I don’t know when I’ll be going home. When I’ll see you again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Leaning back until she’s laying flat on the slate of the dock, her feet still dangling over the edge, she takes the cloak away from her face so she can see the sky. From this angle she can’t really see the Breach - just the edges of the angry, roiling clouds around it, vague enough that it could be any spring storm. The rest of the sky is a clear, cloudless blue, crisp in the mountain air. It seems bigger here than near home - the Emerald Graves are so full of trees that it’s never quite this clear a picture. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Even the sky is different.” She turns her head slightly to the right, focusing on the Breach for just a moment, then rolls into her left side to block it out. “Can you see the Breach from Briathos’s Steps? From near the vallasdahlen? I don’t know if I hope you can or not. Because if you can, there’s one thing we’re looking at that’s the same. If not...well, if not, you don’t have to see the giant hole ripped in the sky.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lapsing into silence, she rolls back onto her back, more careful to avoid looking at the Breach this time. There are a few clouds drifting across the upside-down bowl of the bright blue sky, and for a moment she lets herself pretend they’re aravels, drifting across the Dales. If she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine some of the sounds on the cold wind are aravels creaking. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A song pops into her head - one she’s sung to and with her children many, many times, teaching them and playing games at the same time. Instructions for how to drive an aravel, tied up in pride to be Dalish. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tighten the rig with the Hearthkeeper’s knot, topsail, staysail, and main,” she sings aloud, voice thin and brittle. Her eyes stay closed, because then maybe she can pretend she’s not the only one singing this song. “The traces tie to the girth and the collar, and the collar is tied to the rein.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When will she get to see an aravel next? When will she harness a halla rather than a horse, for guiding and helping rather than to be led? The tears return, heavier and faster this time. She keeps singing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Say thrice the prayer to Ghilan’nain, to quicken the white halla’s tread. Break camp before the last star has faded, to chase the bright day ahead.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s Cloudreach, time for the clan to turn from elsewhere in the Emerald Graves back to Briathos’s Steps, same as every year. She’s going to miss the vallaslin ceremonies for the children growing into adults, something she’s never missed since she received her own vallaslin. She reaches up and traces the marks on her cheeks, Dirthamen’s marks, wet with her tears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’ll see them all again. She has to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A thousand miles beneath the wheels, sails against the sky. Swifter than a dragon’s flight, the People are passing by.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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